In 1860 Miss Hosmer again visited America, to see her father, who was seriously ill.  How proud Dr. Hosmer must have been of his gifted daughter now that her fame was in two hemispheres!  Surely he had not “spoiled” her.  She could now spend for him as he had spent for her in her childhood.  While here, she received a commission from St. Louis for a bronze portrait-statue of Missouri’s famous statesman, Thomas Hart Benton.  The world wondered if she could bring out of the marble a man with all his strength and dignity, as she had a woman with all her grace and nobility.

She visited St. Louis, to examine portraits and mementos of Colonel Benton, and then hastened across the ocean to her work.  The next year a photograph of the model was sent to the friends, and the likeness pronounced good.  The statue was cast at the great royal foundry at Munich, and in due time shipped to this country.  May 27, 1868, it was unveiled in Lafayette Park, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, the daughter, Mrs. John C. Fremont, removing the covering.  The statue is ten feet high, and weighs three and one-half tons.  It rests on a granite pedestal, ten feet square, the whole being twenty-two feet square.  On the west side of the pedestal are the words from Colonel Benton’s famous speech on the Pacific Railroad, “There is the East—­there is India.”  Both press and people were heartily pleased with this statue, for which Miss Hosmer received ten thousand dollars, the whole costing thirty thousand.

She was now in the midst of busy and successful work.  Orders crowded upon her.  Her “Sleeping Faun,” which was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1865, was sold on the day of opening for five thousand dollars, to Sir Benjamin Guinness.  Some discussion having arisen about the sale, he offered ten thousand, saying, that if money could buy it, he would possess it.  Miss Hosmer, however, would receive only the five thousand.  The faun is represented reclining against the trunk of a tree, partly draped in the spoils of a tiger.  A little faun, with mischievous look, is binding the faun to the tree with the tiger-skin.  The newspapers were enthusiastic about the work.

The London Times said:  “In the groups of statues are many works of exquisite beauty, but there is one which at once arrests attention and extorts admiration.  It is a curious fact that amid all the statues in this court, contributed by the natives of lands in which the fine arts were naturalized thousands of years ago, one of the finest should be the production of an American artist.”  The French Galignani said, “The gem of the classical school, in its nobler style of composition, is due to an American lady, Miss Hosmer.”  The London Art Journal said, “The works of Miss Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and others we might name, have placed American on a level with the best modern sculptors of Europe.”  This work was repeated for the Prince of Wales and for Lady Ashburton, of England.